WEEKEND TRADE SHEET for 10/11/2025
Actionable stock & crypto swing-trades—fresh every Saturday, zero noise.
WEEKEND TRADE SHEET
Paid subscribers only · Issue #21 — Saturday, October 11, 2025
Big flash crash on Friday, especially across alts. The flush seems to have effectively reset them. This upcoming weeks looks interesting, to say the least. Are you ready?
Macro snapshot
Big headline: an abrupt escalation in U.S.-China trade rhetoric (a large tariff announcement on Oct 10) sparked a broad risk-off day. U.S. equities and global risk assets sold off sharply on Friday and into the close. Reuters/market wires called it the biggest one-day drop since April for major indexes. Reuters
Crypto crash: digital assets saw an outsized liquidation event Friday with large single-day losses and several billion in liquidations as traders de-risked across spot and derivatives. Crypto outlets and financial wires flagged the scale and speed of the sell-off. The Economic Times
Volatility & flows: VIX jumped from mid-teens into the low-20s on Friday (VIX ~21.66), reflecting a rapid re-pricing of realized/expected volatility. Gold bid into the move while oil and cyclical commodity exposures weakened. Cboe Global Markets
Takeaway: this past week’s dominant theme was headline-driven risk-off. A trade/tariff shock compressed risk appetite and forced rapid de-risking across equities and crypto. Position size and event-reactive rules (stops, pre-defined trims/hedges) matter more than market direction here.
Catalysts in view
Trade / geopolitics (daily): follow any U.S.-China updates, implementation timing for announced tariffs, and diplomatic moves around APEC; headlines will continue to lead flows. (Tariff implementation windows are being reported; stay current.)
Earnings (ongoing): Q3 reporting continues; bank and tech earnings will be immediate re-allocation drivers in a risk-off environment. Watch names with China exposure.
Market structure & liquidity: upcoming Treasury auctions and bill settlements (mid-week); watch auction results for strain in front-end liquidity if risk premiums widen.
Fed / data flow & labor: with data windows already noisy (shutdown-related delays earlier) and Fed minutes/comments fresh this week, any stronger-than-expected labor or inflation read will produce outsized moves.
Why it matters: With the market now in an event-driven regime, newsflow (trade & geopolitics) will dominate technicals in the near term. Earnings will redistribute capital across sectors, while Treasury/auction prints will determine whether fixed-income markets can absorb risk premium moves cleanly. In practice: expect fast, headline-led breakouts or washouts; trade smaller, prefer limit/buy-stop entries, and predefine exact trim/hedge actions for each scenario.
Risk Gauge
VIX: ~21.7 (jumped ~+31% Friday) — volatility price moved sharply higher.
Dollar / FX: DXY traded near ~98.8 (slightly firmer on safe-haven flows)
10-yr UST: yields briefly repriced intraday as flows hit fixed income (10-yr ~4.06% area on end-week reads; desk).
Crypto: BTC pulled back into the $102k area on the shock before closing back up around $112770; crypto liquidity and perp-funding metrics tightened during the cascade.
Commodities: gold saw a bid (safe-haven), while WTI crude weakened sharply (oil down ~4-5% into the sell-off).
Risk read: headline-induced risk-off with higher tail risk. The desk view: markets are in a “react first, ask questions later” mode — large intraday gaps are more likely until headlines stabilize. That argues for:
Smaller size (reduce per-trade R),
Strict order hygiene (limit/buy-stops, OCO stops),
Pre-sized hedges (put spreads or VIX call exposure priced and sized to cover your largest single-day gap), and
Monitoring funding / liquidity in crypto and small-cap equities before adding exposure.
Fresh Trade Set-ups
(Aim: ≥ 20 % move in 14-30 days; longs ▲, shorts ▼)